Brothers

So the kid at the beginning gets guilt-tripped by Riker for playing a practical joke.

There are several problems with this scenario - if Riker is the one taking responsibility for them being on the ship, then isn't this his fault? Riker puts it all on the older brother. Second, why are children going down to an alien planet, shore leave or not, unsupervised? And most importantly, if there is a plant that is very very deadly, then why are children allowed to roam around freely without any guidance? Don't they usually scan the environment before going down?

So the kid at the beginning gets guilt-tripped by Riker for playing a practical joke.

There are several problems with this scenario - if Riker is the one taking responsibility for them being on the ship, then isn't this his fault? Riker puts it all on the older brother. Second, why are children going down to an alien planet, shore leave or not, unsupervised? And most importantly, if there is a plant that is very very deadly, then why are children allowed to roam around freely without any guidance? Don't they usually scan the environment before going down?

Stupid adults.

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I agree with all of this. I assume the older brother is supposed to be... what? 10-11? Why is he left unsupervised with his younger brother in a potentially dangerous environment?

Without suggesting that he's right to feel that way, Riker may have felt that the kid was old enough that he should have known playing the particular practical joke he did on his younger brother wasn't kosher.

There are poisonous plants just around outside on Earth, most kids know not to eated the purpleberries. Kids are probably thoroughly debriefed not to eat any strange plants on alien worlds, and this kid, in his grief for thinking he killed his brother, ignored what he was taught.

There's one thing I picked up in the episode which was pretty subtle. Midway through the episode, The Enterprise detects an unknown ship entering orbit with no lifeforms. We then see Lore, and he reveals was rescued from outer space by a Pakled merchant ship. He's also wearing wearing Pakled clothing.

When Lore's homing beacon was activated, I think he must have killed the crew. Assuming the Pakleds tried to stop him, what would have been his response? In this situation, Data used subterfuge and guile, not hurting anyone, because that's not in his nature. Lore, on the other hand, would had no qualms in killing people to forward his goals, because that's his nature.

It's an interesting question. For all we know the return program had a specific set of parameters that overrided all other protocols and Data and Lore were similarly programed with a similar return program.

If it's just vague like... come home however possible, then their personalities(for lack of a better word) would play into that. Data vented the air on the bridge. Lore would've done so for the whole ship. Assuming he hadn't already killed the Pakleds.

I don't know, I think Soong would have programmed a 'don't kill' exception into both of the homing programs. Lore could have just transported them to some random planet as easily as he could have killed them.

It was always my interpretation that Lore had acquired the ship long ago. He was on the Enterprise for all of 5 minutes before he decided to get them all killed, I doubt the Pakleds would've faired much better.

Were the kids on an away mission? I thought they had gotten to the poisonous plant in the ship's arboretum? Anyway, I agree the B-plot there was weak, I'm not sure why I'm supposed to care about these kids or see the parallel between them and Data/Lore.

In the case of the kids the older brother pulled a joke, the younger took it too seriously and ate some stupid poisonous plant putting his life at risk. (Curing unknown alien viruses inside of a day? Piece of cake for the Enterprise medical staff. Producing and providing anti-toxins for known poisons? Yikes! Need to get to a starbase toot-sweet!) I mean it's a fairly "common" brother thing for shit to happen like that.

Data's case? Very, very, different. Data doesn't owe Lore an OUNCE of forgiveness given that Lore has shown him self to be a complete sociopath who doesn't care about anyone else but himself. He nearly killed the entire Enterprise crew and violently attacked their "father." Sorry, why does Data owe Lore forgiveness? What differences do he and Lore have to reconcile? Seems like Data's in the perfect "fuck that guy" situation to me.

It was always my interpretation that Lore had acquired the ship long ago. He was on the Enterprise for all of 5 minutes before he decided to get them all killed, I doubt the Pakleds would've faired much better.

Were the kids on an away mission? I thought they had gotten to the poisonous plant in the ship's arboretum? Anyway, I agree the B-plot there was weak, I'm not sure why I'm supposed to care about these kids or see the parallel between them and Data/Lore.

In the case of the kids the older brother pulled a joke, the younger took it too seriously and ate some stupid poisonous plant putting his life at risk. (Curing unknown alien viruses inside of a day? Piece of cake for the Enterprise medical staff. Producing and providing anti-toxins for known poisons? Yikes! Need to get to a starbase toot-sweet!) I mean it's a fairly "common" brother thing for shit to happen like that.

Data's case? Very, very, different. Data doesn't owe Lore an OUNCE of forgiveness given that Lore has shown him self to be a complete sociopath who doesn't care about anyone else but himself. He nearly killed the entire Enterprise crew and violently attacked their "father." Sorry, why does Data owe Lore forgiveness? What differences do he and Lore have to reconcile? Seems like Data's in the perfect "fuck that guy" situation to me.

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I agree that if the idea was for the line about forgiveness was meant to apply for Data and Lore then that's a messed-up message. Lore's a mass-murdering sociopath not a guy who broke Data's favorite toy when they were younger or something.